Last week’s announcement by Autotrader.com, combined with previous announcements by Cars.com and other
automotive website providers, shines the spotlight on live dealer live chat.
Many of us are asking questions about what this means for our dealerships, so I conducted an exclusive interview with Marc Hayes, the founder and head of products for Contact At Once! whose software powers the live chat features on both Autotrader.com and Cars.com.
Jeff: What are the implications of last week’s Autotrader.com announcement?
Marc: The broad implication is that, if live chat wasn’t already a mainstream technology in automotive retail, it is now. The momentum behind dealer chat has been building for several years with adoption by Cars.com, CarsDirect, and others. Now Autotrader.com has implemented chat. Dealers that don’t already have a chat strategy will need to develop one.